Girls of Steel: taking over the robots to compete nationally at FIRST contest

Patti Rote’s dream of creating an all-girl robotics design team has finally been realized — and they’re headed for the national championship competition April 27-30 in St. Louis after winning All-Star Rookie awards locally and in Washington, D.C.

Rote, Carnegie Mellon University’s robotics industry program director, had witnessed teams of 90-percent boys at national contests for years, so this fall she got CMU Robotics Institute faculty to mentor the new all-female team. Calling themselves Girls of Steel, the group of mostly high-school freshman hails from 11 different school districts and uses the Rosie the Riveter logo on their uniforms — with a robotic arm in place of the strong right she usually brandishes.

In St. Louis, they’ll face 2,000 other teams — 11,000 competitors — at FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), which offers about $15 million in scholarships as prizes.

Their previous awards came because the girls, who have never been on a robotics team before, have done their own website, business plan and marketing, and helped other teams with their efforts in the process. When they heard about the recent tornados near the contest site, they even decided to raise money for the victims.

“It’s just wonderful to see them work together,” says Rote. It is hoped that the team involvement will provide experience with technology not always offered to girls in today’s classrooms.

They have already mastered some of the skills needed for the competition, says Rote, such as building a larger robot to deploy a smaller robot to perform a designated task, with the larger robot working autonomously for part of the time.

“I think we’re going to see a change in the type of people who apply at the Robotics Institute, or robotics programs across the states,” Rote concludes.

Do Good:

• Watch the Girls of Steel team in a promo video, in a Pittsburgh match, and receiving thePittsburgh Rookie All-Star Award.

 

Writer: Marty Levine

Source: Patti Rote, Carnegie Mellon University